Week 4 - Supervising

June 28, 2010

Monday of week four began as every other Monday morning here does with an abrupt awakening to the sound of an ancient vacuum cleaner. It’s like clockwork; it’s so reliable that I didn’t even set an alarm for today, granted I did not have to be at Mrs. E’s until 10:30. Starting today, for the next two weeks I will be learning every detail about being a supervisor at Mrs. E’s so that I myself can supervise for a few days. Therefore, for all of today I shadowed Lorraine and tried to absorb all the information I could on what her responsibilities are as a supervisor.

As does every supervisor, Lorraine has her particular way of going about things. She starts off her day by checking the schedule, which she pre-plans a few shifts in advance, to see who is at work and who is absent for the day. Then adjustments are made as needed. Today I got a much better sense of how scheduling works in our dining hall because a lot of the employees either called out sick or had to leave early for various reasons. When we are short staff, people have to be moved around from station to station in order to accommodate the flow of diners accordingly. For instance, at the beginning of a meal most staff are placed in service stations to serve food as efficiently as possible, then a number of them are periodically moved into the dish room, and last some staff are moved out into the dining area to clean up tables and prepare the dining area for the next meal.

After reviewing the schedule for the day, Lorraine and I went over the menu for the week to ensure its accuracy. This week we noticed an error. Usually hamburgers are served for either lunch or dinner every other day; however, this week hamburgers were on the menu for both lunch and dinner every day. We brought the problem to the attention of all of the other supervisors and higher level management but it was too late to make any changes for the current day. However, there was still time to alter the menu for the rest of the week by replacing hamburgers with other main dish menu items. The hamburger fiasco was a good example of how everything in Mrs. E’s is so interconnected. As a result of having hamburgers on the menu too many times several purchases needed to be changed such as increasing orders for other main dish items and the menu for the week needed to be rewritten.

Next Lorraine and I continued to move down the “Supervisor Checklist.” We set up the cash registers for lunch, first checking that they had the proper amount of change, $45 in 5 dollar bills, $35 in 1 dollar bills, and $5 in quarters for a total of $85 in change. At the end of a meal it is also the supervisors responsibility to change out the cash drawer and collect any profits made during the meal. For the rest of the afternoon I observed Lorraine as she made rounds around the dining hall making sure that everything was cleaned and prepared for dinner service. We also ventured down to the basement to see if there were any decorations in storage that I might be able to use for my World Cup themed dinner event. We found a few things, however I think I will have to keep on looking or make some of my own decorations.

Once again the thing that always impresses me most about working with the supervisors at Mrs. E’s is how well they get along with all of the staff. There generally seems to between them instead of a hierarchical relationship which is how I think most workplace environments function best.

June 29, 2010

This morning I continued my supervisor training with Sergio. He printed out some very helpful information for me, like the supervisor training manual he created which detailed how to complete daily work assignments, supervisor check lists, sanitation assessments, cash register set up and break down, and employee operating guidelines. It gave a nice overview of everything that supervisors are responsible for. Today I got to experience an additional supervisor responsibility, job interviewing. Bill, myself, and Sergio interviewed a young man this morning for three different positions: hot foods prep, pizza prep, and grill cook. First we described each jobs responsibilities, hours, and benefits. Then we asked the interviewee some interview questions in order to determine if he met the requirements of the job. Even half way through the interview it was obvious that he was more than qualified for the job, in addition to being a well mannered and motivated individual. He was one of the top candidates so far.

After the interview we started gearing up for lunch service. For the past few days we have been preparing most of the meal in advance because one of the camps, which has 450 campers, arrives all at the same time so we need to make sure we are well stocked with menu items when they arrive. Lunch ran very smoothly today, which I think had a lot to do with the fact that we had almost a full staff and had prepped much of the food in advance. While food items might lose some of their freshness after sitting in a warmer for a while I think the general idea is that it is better to have food available rather than running out of or getting behind on an item. We simply don’t have the ability to batch cook during the meal given timing of the arrival of the diners, the labor we have available, and the machinery we have available. I think batch cooking is more feasible during the school year when diners come and go at a more even pace.

For the rest of the day I continued testing recipes for my special event. I first prepared my main dish, the Brazilian Feijoada because it takes nearly two hours to cook down. It was nice to be back in the kitchen preparing food, getting my hands dirty. The Feijoada is a meat and beans dish containing several different kinds of beef and pork, black beans, and spices. We don’t have stove tops in the kitchen so I had to use one of the steam kettles to prepare it. The kettles get very hot very quickly and it is difficult to keep them at a consistent temperature so I kept on having to turn the kettle on and off but all in all I think the dish turned out just fine. Although, I think I will an additional Serrano pepper and more water to the final dish because the test dish really did not have much spice to it at all and ended up being a little too thick. Next I tested the collard greens recipe I had which was quick, simple, and yielded great result. There’s really nothing better than fresh greens when they are cooked right. The collards will be served in the traditional Brazilian manner, with the Feijoada over rice. Tomorrow I will finish testing the rest of my recipes and put in a marketing request for my special event.

June 30-July 2

For the rest of the week I continued learning all of the details of service supervising and tried to make progress on details for my monotony breaker dinner. Lorraine and I scoped out what decorations were in storage at Mrs. E’s and then I took a trip down to Oliver dining hall for a tour of the facilities and to pick through their decorations as well. Oliver is closed for the summer but Dave Weakly painted a good picture as to what things are like when it is up and running. Compared to Mrs. E’s, Oliver serves significantly less people so it had less of an industrial feel and it also connects with the residence part of the dormitory via a lounge area which also gives it a more homey feel. After the tour Dave and I were able to go down into storage and find a few decorative odds and ends like a wire Eiffel Tower, some Italian decorations, and cloth with countries flags on it (all of which will come in handy). In addition I found some netting in Mrs. E’s that I should be able to fashion into a nice goal over the entrance to the dining hall.

During the end of the week I got to encounter one of the challenges that supervisors have to cope with, being short staffed. Several employees called out sick or left sick on top of many staff members being on vacation therefore we were not left with enough people to run the dish room properly so we had to “go to paper” meaning we replace all of the dinner ware with paper or plastic products. The main reason we decided to go to paper tonight is because we have a camp of close to 500 people that all arrive and leave at the same time so it would be impossible to keep up with a flood of dishes all at once without more staff. No one really likes to go to paper because it is so expensive but sometimes it is necessary to avoid undue stress on staff and to keep things running smoothly.

This week Lorraine is also helping train one of the supervisors from Oliver, Kuni on how to close Mrs. E’s so I got to observe that as well as learn how to close up Mrs. E’s myself. Luckily we have another check list, a closing checklist to follow along so I didn’t get too lost. Mostly, at the end of the night everything gets deep cleaned, like the grills and dining room. The supervisor’s job is to ensure that everyone is on task at this point, especially in the dish room so that everyone does not have to stay until the wee hours of the night. Lorraine was also good about going around to each food station towards the end of the meal and making sure that they had everything in order and mostly wiped down so that closing would be quick and painless. For example, she always asks whoever is in the deli to weigh all of the meats and cheese and start filling out their actuals sheets when dinner calms down in order to get a head start on things.

The next day we attended the Housing’s “First Friday” meeting which was ironically on a Thursday due to many people not being able to make it to a Friday meeting. We mostly discussed how to make the First Friday meeting more efficient so that it is less of a report and more of a discussion. Everyone concluded that the meeting itself was a necessity in order to keep everyone in the department on the same page but no conclusion was reached on how to better format the meeting.

Week 3- Mrs. E's

For the next several weeks I spent my time working intimately with the management, supervisors, and staff at the largest residential dining facility on campus, Mrs. E's.

June 21, 2010

This Monday I spent the day with a Health inspector and one of the supervisors at Mrs. E’s, Lorraine Herring. I have never gotten to witness a health inspection before so it was an enlightening experience. This summer Mrs. E’s will have to undergo three separate health inspections mandated by the department of education because there are three separate camps that Mrs. E’s is catering to that require it. Of course having to undergo three inspections in less than a month is never what a food service facility wants to have to go through but after speaking with the health inspector it does not seem like the management here has very much to worry about. Mrs. E’s seems to have built a great reputation with state health inspection and continued to do so today. And really I think that’s what it is all about. I learned today that unless something is egregiously wrong with a facility as long as you have a healthy relationship with your health inspector then passing inspection should be a breeze. However, that’s not to say that a lot of hard work does not go into keeping a facility like Mrs. E’s up to snuff with health codes.
Both during the health inspection and while shadowing Lorraine I learned a lot about the specifications for storing, preparing, and disposing of food. Temperature is crucial. It seemed that the majority of what the health inspector did was take temperatures of hot and cold items to ensure that they were in the proper range for avoiding microbial contamination. The health inspector especially emphasized the importance of proper temperature for refrigerated meats and dairy products because the bacteria Listeria can flourish in cold environments. Overall Mrs. E’s did very well in the health inspection with the exception of one critical control point deduction because an employee was chewing a straw in the kitchen. Staff are not supposed to eat or consume anything in the kitchen or on the serving lines.
After hanging out with the health inspector I joined up with Lorraine to observe and work on the service lines. We started out on the main dish line where I learned the importance of accurate and consistent portion sizes. I was serving French fries and got to witness firsthand how hard it is to keep portion sizes the same, which is directly associated with customer satisfaction. The amount of fries I served were rarely the same size because of the tongs being used to serve them and the speed at which they needed to be served. In order to avoid complaints I think I ended up over serving things quite a bit, especially the french-fries. After the main dish I moved over to the deli where we made sandwiches where I learned the importance of matching the amount of food you have out on the line to customer demand. This is done mostly to avoid food waste. For example, if it seems that the lunch rush is winding down it is better not to restock items because they will most likely not be used.
Then Lorraine showed me how to fill out the “paperwork” associated with service operations. First we went over the temperature monitoring process which consists of recording temperatures of food items and cooling units on a worksheet posted in each station. This is done so as to ensure that all items are cooked properly and refrigerated so that they are not as susceptible to contamination by potentially harmful bacteria. Then she showed me how to fill out the actuals for a meal. Actuals are a measure of how much of an item was produced, served, and leftover (or disposed of). It is a crucial part of forecasting for future meals because it also takes into account the number of people served per meal. After each meal supervisors like Lorraine enter the actuals information into the FMS system so that the information is available to everyone. For the rest of the afternoon I shadowed Lorraine and observed her as she prepared the front of the house for dinner. In between meals, supervisors have a checklist that they follow that includes ensuring that all staff are on task, all silverware, drinks, and condiments are stocked, that the dining area and all food service stations have been cleaned and restocked, etc. It may seem like there is a lot of down time between meals, but this is just an illusion. Things may get chaotic during meals but almost just as much production and activity occurs after all of the diners have left in order to be ready for the next meal.

June 22, 2010

This morning I attended a meeting with Mrs. E’s management staff and Sheryl Kidwell where we checked on the progress of the themed dinners planned for the next school year. The fall semester starts off with a “Back to School Barbecue” featuring menus items such as pulled pork, potato salad, hamburgers and hot dogs, coleslaw, and locally produced tomatoes. The back to school barbecue will be a welcoming event for new students where they can learn about and enjoy the meals that KU dining services has to offer. The next event is a SUA sponsored event with a Carnival theme that will be hosted by all three residential dining facilities.
The meeting this morning was for all special events for the coming year therefore we went as far as to begin planning and discussing themed meals for Thanksgiving and beyond. For Thanksgiving this year, dining services plans to feature dishes that will be representative of various regions throughout the nation. For example, I suggested apple butter and biscuits for a popular Virginian Thanksgiving dish. We also spoke about the Willy Wonka themed dinner that will hopefully be entered into the yearly NACUFS themed meal competition. It sounds as though Mrs. E’s is ready to hold nothing back, especially with the chocolate river they are planning to make.
After the meeting, I met up with Sergio and started cashier training. I spent the majority of the lunch period working with Brian learning how to set up the register, run cards, take cash payments, and fill out the necessary record keeping documents. Most campers have a meal plan that allows them to eat three meals a day. However, some choose to pay with cash and others use something called a directors card which is typically used for small groups of people that are visiting or staying for a small amount of time. Time flew by especially once the lunch rush hit; I think we served close to 800 people for lunch today. I’ve never swiped so many cards in the span of less than an hour. For the rest of the day I went and explored the libraries on campus and brainstormed more decoration ideas for my themed dinner project.

June 23, 2010

Today the United States beat Algeria in the 92nd minute of play in the World Cup Tournament, thank goodness I didn’t have to work until 12:30 today, I got to watch every minute of it on a big screen television from a comfortable bar stool. When I got to Mrs. E’s today I met with Sergio again and began learning about warewashing. I spent most of my day in the dish room, which was not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be because time flies when you are doing fast paced, intense work. I felt like I was only in there for 20 minutes when in reality I had been on the dish line for more than two hours.
Throughout the day I learned dish washing techniques such as the “three sink method,” something that I am very familiar with having worked in many small restaurants and eateries. This method as it states entails using three sinks. The first sink is for washing dishes with soap to remove any food and debris. The second sink is for rinsing the dishes with clean water, and the third sink is filled with very hot water or a combination of water and sanitizer. Dishes are submerged in the third sink and then allowed to air dry to ensure proper sanitation. Next I spent time in the main dish room in order to better understand the layout of the dish room. Basically there are 5 stations: plate clearing, washing, loading, sorting, and replacing. I got to experience all of these first hands in order to better appreciate the hard work that dish room staff do. I also was shown how to clean out the dish machine and refill it.
However, I did not spend my entire day doing dishes. During the afternoon I sat in on a supervisor meeting where I had to opportunity to gain some insight into how to address conflicts between employees. After a lengthy discussion it was concluded that confrontation between employees needs to be confronted before things escalate to ensure that the work environment remains professional and cordial. Petty argument undue disruptions in the workplace that can have a negative impact on production and the well being of other employees therefore it may be necessary to go as far as to write disagreeable employees up to preserve order in the work place and send a strong message that inappropriate behavior is unacceptable. I think it is important to have standardized procedures to follow when employees misbehave in order to clearly establish what kind of behaviors are expected of staff in the work place. I can see how behavioral problems could become common without proper explanation and subsequent enforcement expected norms.

June 24, 2010

This fine Thursday morning I met up with Jim and Dave Hurwitz at the Union to work the Kansas Memorial Union Dining table at the New Student Orientation information session. There we answered any questions students and parents had about KU dining. I really enjoyed listening to and watching Jim speak with the parents and new students because he was always very clear, engaging, and informative while speaking to people about how meal plans work at KU.
Next I took a tour of the Mortar and Pestle facility with Nona, Jonna, John and a few others. All the walls are up and the place looks like it is really coming together. You can actually visualize where everything is going to be. Most of the equipment, such as shelving and stoves, are already in we are just waiting for the construction crew to finish up a few last minute details. Things should start moving along quickly after next week.
Last and not least today I learned about hot foods operations in Mrs. E’s with Hugh Reno. First we went around to all of the appliances like the ovens, steamer, and grittles and Hugh showed me how to operate and clean all of them, which will come in handy as I begin testing the menu for my special event.
One of the things that stood out to me today was how willing everyone is to share with me what they know from culinary skills to food service experience. Huge has had copious amounts of culinary training and thus has a lot of insight into food preparation so I really enjoyed speaking with him about hot foods preparation. For example, I learned that vegetables retain the most nutrients and color when they are blanched, not steamed or sautéed. And that the most important aspect of a soup is a high quality stock. How do you make a high quality stock you might ask? Well Hugh Reno can tell you. It all starts with your mirepoix which is chopped celery, onion, and carrots. Then you add your meat, for instance if you were making a chicken stock you would add chicken backs, legs, and bones then bring the mixture up to heat quickly so that the fat from the meat separates out and can be removed. You will also want to skim the top of the stock periodically to make sure that it does not get greasy. Then you let the concoction sit for anywhere from 2 to 24 hours depending on what kind of meat it has in it and voila! The cornerstone of a good soup is born. I can’t wait to have a kitchen again so I can attempt to make my own stock.

Week 2 - The Ins and Outs of KU Dining

My second week at KU was spent visiting with all of the department heads under KU dining learning about how they contribute and fit into the big picture. Each day I met with someone new and learned more and more about the behind the scenes aspects of a food service operation.

June 14
Today I got to tour all of the dining facilities that are open for the summer on campus with Alicia Stultz, the Assistant Director for Retail Dining. Alicia introduced me to the managers of each dining facility and I got to talk with them briefly about how each of their individual operations work. Getting to physically see some of the other dining centers help clear up some of the questions I had about the differences between residential and retail dining on campus. For instance I got to see how the self-branded concepts are worked into the retail centers and how they differ from the menus that residential dining centers serve. The self-branded concepts require the same products day after day while residential meals rotate on a 5 week menu cycle where there are new meal items practically every day.
While walking with Alicia I also got to hear about some of the historical aspects of the KU campus. I’m really excited to go check out the Natural History Museum that KU has I hear there are all sorts of interesting bits of history from live snakes to important literature insides its walls. One thing I also ended up speaking to Alicia about was how I find it interesting that NACUFS recruits Dietetics undergraduates as interns because thus far this internship seems much more geared towards hospitality and management. Alicia empathized with this sentiment of mine because she had a similar revelation while teaching a foodservice management class to both HTM and dietetics students. She noticed that dietetics students tended to see things mainly in black and white, as compared to the hospitality students who were able to see the gray area in between. I think it is valuable to gain a better perspective on the “gray area” when in a management position because things are not always clear cut. One has to learn to be flexible and innovative in an environment that is constantly evolving.
Therefore, I think it was especially fortunate for me to have obtained this internship position because it will help fill in the gaps that may occur during my undergraduate education, specifically pertaining to foodservice and management skills. In addition it will help further develop my interpersonal relationship (or people) and customer service skills in that I will be interacting with faculty, staff, and customers on a daily basis.

June 15
This Tuesday I met with Craig Josling, the Procurement Officer and Karen Cross the Meal Plan Administrator.
One of the main things that Craig and I spoke about was the benefits of using a prime vendor, in KU’s case that is Sysco. Craig emphasized how sourcing from one location saves time and money and how Sysco has special rewards programs for being timely and efficient. Sysco requires that we purchase 70% or more of our inventory from them, but they offer incentives like the drop incentive which requires that we meet a minimum drop size for each delivery and reduce the number of stops or deliveries that Sysco has to make per time period. It requires more effort on our end to plan ahead and combine drops but in the end we get a back end payment of up to 1% of whatever we purchased during the year if we decrease the number of drops, which can amount to a lot.
After meeting with Craig I moved over to the cubicle next to his to speak with Karen Cross about what she does under KU Dining, which I found involves meal card activation, any billing for meals, and maintaining and trouble shooting for the Micros and CS Gold systems that track all meal transactions. Karen also helped explain how the different meal plans that KU offers work. All on-campus residents with housing contracts are required to have a meal plan, if you live in dorm, then you have a meal plan. When you sign a housing contract the default meal plan is the 320/320 plan, meaning you get 320 meals for the year to use in the residential dining facilities and 320 dollars per year to use in all of the retail facilities as well as 6 guest passes per year. However, this can be upgraded if necessary. It seemed that the most difficult part of choosing a meal plan was avoiding waste because dining center meals and guess passes that are not used are forfeited at the end of the semester. However, Beak’em bucks, which is just cash added to your card like a debt card, and KU Cuisine Cash (for retail use) rolls over from semester to semester. If you run out of meals before the end of the semester you can add more, 10 meals for 77$. Here is the meal plan break down as far as I understand it:




“Dining Center Meals” – can be used at any of the Residence Hall All-You-Care-To-Eat Facilities: Ekdahl, Oliver, GSP. There is no limit to the number of times the Dining Center Meals can be used in one day. KU card is non-transferable, meaning meals cannot be shared, that’s what Guest Passes or KU Cuisine Cash are for.
“KU Cuisine Cash”- is a value added system that acts like a debit card. Any KU cash not spent during the fall semester will roll over to the spring semester.
Beak ‘Em Bucks” – is a declining balance account that is automatically set up for you when the KU card is issued. Money must be added to this account in order to use it. They can be used for food purchases, printing, photocopying, and laundry on campus.
“Guest Passes”- are assigned to the KU card when you sign up for a housing contract and select a meal plan. Half of the guest passes are available each semester and must be used by the end of the semester, they do not roll over. They can be used at any of the Residential Dining facilities.

KU is currently in the process of revamping their meal plans in order to make them more straight forward and easy to understand. Most of the reformatting has to do with renaming the plans so that there as less numbers involved with the hope of decreasing confusion.

June 17

At 5 a.m. this lovely early morning I met up with Judy Todd and Chris Nichols to observe receiving, storeroom operations, and the ordering process. After working with several procurement personnel I found that purchasing, ordering, and receiving is a game of keeping track of numbers. Whether it is cost of goods, how many units of goods we have in inventory, or how much of a good needs to be ordered, Craig, Chris, and Judy deal with numbers all day long. While working with Chris and Judy I learned about inventory and how important it is for it to be as accurate as possible at all times for reasons like reducing waste and determining how much of a product needs to be ordered. We also went over several key parts of the purchasing, ordering, and forecasting process. First we talked about acutals, which are a count of how much of a menu item was prepared, consumed, and discarded. The data they provide are crucial for forecasting and determining whether a menu item was a success of failure. The next part of the ordering process after actual are entered into the system is forming and order scheduler. The order scheduler is created from service menus in CBOARD, the menu management system, using forecasted numbers. It tells you which items are needed for a particular day and in what quantities they are needed. An order scheduler also includes non-menu or parstock items, which are everyday use items such as condiments and beverages. Parstock orders are determined by customer count (per every 1,000^th person). Orders are placed by the Procurement Supervisor, in this case Chris Nichols, using the CBOARD system. Every day Chris will consult his order scheduler to see what needs to be purchased for the day. Then he takes current inventory into account to ensure that we do not order more of what we already have. He will also consult with production supervisors to see if any additional items are needed due to alteration of menu items etc. Then he will manually create a purchase order by retrieving data from the CBOARD system. Then a purchase order is printed, which is just a record of what we ordered. When the order comes in the vendor provides us with an invoice, a list of what the vendor brought/ what we received. Invoices and purchasing orders are reviewed on a regular basis by each individual venue, the finance department, and the accounting department to ensure that we are not paying for things we didn’t receive and vice versa. Starting this fiscal year KU Dining will be using a new digital system to review purchase orders and invoices called Image Now

June 18

Today was jam packed. First I met with Lisa Englebrecht at the Union to talk about KUDS financials. Then I journeyed up the stairs to meet with Shant Thomas in Marketing to learn about how KU Dining has worked with the Marketing Department to develop the Showtime program. From Lisa I discovered that KU Dining is a self-sponsoring organization that supplies its own budget ever since its merger with the Kansas Memorial Union. It gets the majority of its revenue from the meal plans that students purchase. We also spoke about the nity gritty details of finance like flash reports which give a general idea where everyone is at budget wise. The flash report contains a profit loss statement, sales by unit, food cost, labor cost, and general expenses. Then we broke down what each part of the flash report means. We started with food and labor expenses which can be manipulated by unit managers to their advantage by watching profit loss, altering menus to fit the budget, practicing good planning (drop incentive, if pay invoices on time get a percentage back as well). Then we talked about general costs which include controllable costs and uncontrollable costs. Controllable costs are things like paper plates where if you’re not satisfied with the price or quality of the product you can find another vendor with a similar product. Uncontrollable expenses are things like utilities, over head that the university charges, and workers compensation. Last we talked about depreciation expenses. The idea behind this is to try to pay off an item before it depreciates. For instance, if you renovate a building you will want to finish paying the bill for the first renovation before you renovate it again. Who would have known that so much must be taken into consideration when determining the budget!
For the rest of the afternoon I met with Shant all the way in the very top most corner of the Union building. The marketing department does most of the advertising for dining services whether it be for a special event or monotony breaker dinner like the ones we have at Mrs. E’s or a pamphlet on nutrition. Some examples of what the marketing and graphic design departments have done for KU Dining recently would be the beautiful 2010-11 Dining Guide and the Better Bites pamphlet. Marketing doesn’t just do advertising via print media; they can also convey media online etc. One of the new media outlets that Marketing is trying to utilize is facebook. At Virginia Tech we offered additional meal plan money or various coupons usable throughout the community for taking surveys. All of this was initially conducted through listserv emails but was recently moved onto facebook this year. I think it was very successful and should definitely be initiated at KU.

Week 1 - The Information

My first week at KU was jam packed with information about everything from KU Dining to where the best fishing and restaurant spots in Lawrence were.

June 9
This morning I met Jim at Mrs. E’s and then we immediately headed over to the Union to meet with David Mucci, the Director of the Kansas Memorial Union Corporation, which from my understanding is the culmination of the recent merger of the residential and retail operations on campus. I’m very glad that I had the opportunity to meet with David because he helped spark a lot of thought about what I want to achieve with this internship and about what career I want to pursue after I’m finished with my education. He was very inspiring and encouraged me to not only take advantage of all the NACUFS internship has to offer but to also continue to pursue other avenues within my area of study by perhaps getting in touch with some dietitians from hospitals in the area this summer.
During our meeting David and I also discussed some of the similarities and differences between KU’s dining operations and my own experience with campus dining at Virginia Tech. Both schools have their strengths and weaknesses of course. For instance, Virginia Tech has been very successful in many aspects such as maintaining a high level of interest in on campus dining, but has yet to be very successful with recycling efforts across campus; whereas KU has a flourishing recycling program but has struggled with retaining student interest in purchasing dining plans. Therefore, I hope to help resolve some of the issues KU Dining is faced with by providing another perspective and using some of the resources and information from Virginia Tech while learning from KU dining as well.
I also met with Sheryl Kidwell, the Assistant Director for Residential Dining today. I especially enjoyed speaking with her because she started off as a Dietitian interested in clinical dietetics but decided to pursue a career in food service management instead. Hearing her story about how she acquired her position here at KU and about how passionate she is about what she does was a great motivator for me to learn as much as I can about a career path in food service and meal management this summer. It is always inspiring to meet someone who genuinely loves their job and coworkers. Sheryl and I also spoke a good deal about some of the sustainable initiatives that KU Dining is taking and how they decided to be proactive about the “green” movement rather than reactive. Part of their being proactive involved a switching of primary vendors from U.S. Food Services to SYSCO because SYSCO has begun to include infrastructure for sourcing food locally in their operation. In addition, I also learned of the research KU Dining is doing on composting waste from dining halls. I’m eager to hear as to whether or not they can be successful in their endeavors to compost without already having the infrastructure available in the Lawrence community, and to see if the Lawrence community will then follow in their footsteps. Lastly, I was happy to hear for the second time today about how successful KU’s recycling program has been. I would like to learn more about it in hopes of sharing information with the Virginia Tech community.
Finally, I met with Nona Golledge, the Director of KU Dining Services. We began with speaking about KU Dining’s strategic, or long term, plan for the next five years. Part of the plan included the implementation of KU Dining’s core values that uses the acronym S.C.R.I.P.T. , which stands for: Support, Creativity, Respect, Integrity, Professionalism, and Teaching. In addition to the core values is KU Dining’s core purpose which is to “support our community with exceptional cuisine in a progressive and inviting environment.” I really appreciated how KU Dining has concrete, well planned out goals that it is working towards achieving over this course of the next few years and how they also set the bar high with the ultimate goal of dominating collegiate dining and hospitality programs.
Next Nona and I went over department organization, as in who reports to who and why. I learned that the way their department is structured has a lot to do with streamlining communication so that everyone is always informed about what is relevant to them at all times, thus enabling the organization to execute things efficiently. Nona, like Sheryl, also graduated with a degree in Dietetics, therefore I also asked her to explain how she ended up with the position she has now. It was great to hear from both of them about some of the different avenues that I will be able to pursue with my degree.
June 10- Introduction to Supervising
This afternoon I observed lunch service with Sergio Banos, the head Service Supervisor (front of house operations), and with Bill Corrigan, the head Production Supervisor (back of house operations).
With Sergio I learned how to draw up a schedule of where employees are designated to work for a shift. Drawing up a work schedule takes careful consideration of employees ‘ skills and experience so that all service and production operations run as efficiently as possible. It also takes a great deal of patience and compromising in that employees will often request certain work stations or be reluctant to work in assigned stations. For this reason I really enjoyed observing Sergio because he excelled at smoothing over any scheduling problems while keeping most all of the staff satisfied.
In addition to scheduling Sergio also oversees the actual serving of the meals, meaning speed of service, accuracy of portion sizes, and customer/server interactions. Before and during meals Sergio’s duties include assuring that all service stations are stocked with the proper utensils, that the front of house stays clean, and that food items are prepared in advance so that they remain in stock throughout the meal.

So it Begins!

June 8

Last night I arrived in the beautiful city of Lawrence, Kansas. It is the complete opposite of what everyone pictures Kansas to be like in more ways than just appearance and landscape. It is not one big flat field of farm land, there are actually plenty of trees and hills in this part of the state. From what I can gather from my initial impression Lawrence is a unique town with a lot of history, culture, and vivacity. My internship coordinator, Jim Schilling, confirmed this for me when we took a tour of Kansas University and the town this afternoon. He is very knowledgeable about both Lawrence the city and Kansas University where I will be residing and interning for the next eight weeks. I’m very excited to experience all that this internship has to offer and it makes it even better that I have amazing surroundings to explore and enjoy during my free time.

After settling into my dorm room in Hashinger Hall on Monday night, I spent the next day getting acquainted with some of the KU Dining Services Staff. In the morning I met with Jim, who manages the largest residential dining operation on campus, an all you can eat facility called Mrs. E’s, fondly named after Mrs. Ekdahl who began her KU Dining Services career in 1955. Jim and I discussed some details of the internship program, like my regular duties as well as the projects I will be responsible for throughout my stay. We also talked about my personal goals for the internship which mostly included increasing my understanding of the managerial aspects of the food services industry. Then I headed next door to Hashinger to meet with Julie Crowe, the Human Resources Office Assistant, to fill out some required paper work and get a brief overview of the hiring process for KU Dining. I really enjoyed speaking with Julie because she had some great insight into the ups and downs that come with working in Human Resources, such as the struggle to gain the trust and respect of fellow co-workers. After my introduction today it seems as though I will not need to every worry about being bored, because this internship will keep me on my toes all summer long.